Well, it is. Because CPU is more than price and performance. So particular models will find buyers even if they're far from the "optimal" price/performance curve.
The most obvious factors in CPUs are: ECC support and security features (Intel vPro, AMD PRO).
TDP also has a big role here, since being able to cool a CPU using passive or extremely silent solution raises its value.
The list is longer.
If someone told you TDP means power consumption or heat dissipation, I'm afraid he lied (or didn't know).
TDP shows what kind of cooling will be sufficient for the chip (at base clocks).
More below.
I'm not sure what you're comparing to. I assume it's a 65W Pentium.
TDP looks like a quantitative value, but it's actually categorical. As in: distinct, textual, non-numerical.
Numbers are easy to remember and there's an obvious order, so you know how to compare them. You can expect that a 90W cooler will be OK for a 65W CPU (because 90 > 65).
It would be equally OK if TDP was "small", "normal" or "high" as long as the same values appeared on coolers and there was a well defined order.
I don't know why these values are 35W and 65W, but it became a standard.
So if a CPU maxes out at 61W, why not give that as TDP? Same for coolers?
Because we would have a mess. Because people would constantly ask questions like: "my Pentium has TDP of 63W and I want to use it with a 59W cooler. Will it explode?"
So instead we called all of it 65W. And CPU makers try not to go too far over 65W. And cooler makers always include a safety margin. It's just a convention. It's all relative. And it works!
And when a CPU uses 32W, Intel calls it 35W. Why? Because that's the category for thin/mini systems (some passively cooled). Again - 35W is a made up value.
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